


How Not to be Batshit Insane

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-04-20
Updated: 2011-04-22
Packaged: 2017-10-18 10:49:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/188162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dave knew Jade moving in with him for college would be interesting, but he didn't know the girl would be completely clueless about normal human society. He also doesn't know whether he's more annoyed or attracted by that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> This is from a prompt over at the kink meme, so there will eventually be sex. But I'm a romantic so there will probably be a lot of shit going on before that.

She was insane.

Well, no, maybe that was a bit harsh, but it sure seemed like it. Dave had been living with Jade for less than a week, and already the girl was making him question how the hell she had survived for the last seven years without Bec.

He had only agreed to let her move in with him because John and Rose had already been living together for a couple years now, and John had said that Dave was the only one he trusted to look after his twin sister. Dave had told John he was an idiot; that he was a guy who needed his space, but when Rose also started to pester him with her passive aggressive psychology and guilt tripping he gave in.

Jade was just happy to live with someone. She had been on the island even after Sburb had finally ended, sorting through her grandfather’s possessions and papers, trying to get everything in order so that she could move to the continental US and go to college like her friends, like a normal young woman. Rose had helped with most of the paperwork, though luckily Jade had turned out to be a citizen of the United States so they didn’t have to go through that headache.

Whatever homeschooling she had done for herself seemed to be enough to get her into the University of Texas that he was attending in Austin. Or at least, she handed him the envelope they had sent her that congratulated her on being accepted and was full of pamphlets for various activities on campus as well as links for registering for her classes in the fall. She was going for some sort of agricultural major, and he didn’t bother asking what she was planning to do with that for a job. She probably just thought it would be fun and something she would be good at.

For his part, Dave had looked at the tiny studio he had been living in at the time, cursed, and found a two bedroom place ten minutes driving from campus for a damn good price. Bro’s smuppet business, however creepy he found it now, still put money in his bank account every month that easily paid for rent and utilities, and Dave’s own talents DJ-ing on the weekends helped with his tuition.

“Dave? There’s a guy on the phone who says I should pay his organization money for something?” Dave looked up from his desk and over at Jade standing in the doorway holding her new cellphone and looking confused. It seemed to be her new standard expression. Dave’s new neutral expression, if he hadn’t perfected his neutral “cool kid” expression at six, would an exasperated scowl. Right now he was just glad Jade had come to him this time when someone had asked for her money. Last time she had been about to give the local animal shelter two thousand dollars before he came home and stopped her.

"Who are they and what's their excuse?" He said, swinging his chair around and standing up so she would back up out of his room and go back into the living room. The door had been closed, but Jade had a knack for opening and closing the things quietly, probably because she had had to sneak out of the house from an omniscient guardian. She never knocked, that was for sure.

She backed up like he predicted she would and moved to sit on the battered couch Dave had salvaged from Bro's apartment. She put the cellphone on the table, oblivious that the person on it was saying something and she was easily talking loud enough that they could hear her.

"Something about a mayor? He said that as an American citizen I would want to give him money so that a John Hansen could be mayor of Austin. But I don't know a John Hansen, just our John. But I am an American, so shouldn't I give them money?" She looked up at him with such a clueless expression that Dave was torn between a face palm and a smile at such naivety.

"I'll take care of it." Was all he said before grabbing the phone and walking into the tiny kitchen. In a few minutes he convinced the man that they didn't give a shit about an election campaign for Mr. Hansen, and that he was wasting everyone's time here.

As he hung up and put the phone down on the counter Dave indulged himself in a small sigh before looking around the corner. Jade was still sitting on the couch, humming to herself as she typed away on her laptop. Probably talking to John or Rose, it was early enough on the east coast for them to be available.

"Dave?" He grunted to let her know he was listening as he opened the fridge and poured himself a glass of apple juice.

"I want to go shopping, I want something with zucchini in it for dinner and we don't have any." She walked into the kitchen with her laptop as she said this and he saw she had been looking up recipes with the aforementioned vegetable in it. He swore internally and took a sip of his juice while trying to think quickly.

Whatever technology Jade had on her grandfather's island had apparently included something that cooked her meals for her, because while she understood how the various appliances in the apartment worked, the actual art of cooking seemed to elude her as much as it did Dave. Though at least he could make a few things like eggs, pasta and pancakes to supplement his usual microwave dinner diet. Jade usually cooked everything until it could have been dropped in LOHAC's magma. The first time she had tried to make a hot dog in a frying pan only four days ago she thought the smoke detector going off was the signal that it was done, and Dave suppressed a grimace at the memory of explaining that one to the landlord and their neighbor.

"How about we just go out instead? Why cook when we can have someone who likes cooking do it for us?" Is what he eventually says, wincing a little at the phrasing but he'd rather sound a little less in control than have both of them blunder around the kitchen and somehow set zucchini on fire.

Jade seems perfectly fine with this suggestion though, and he borrows her laptop to search for a restaurant to go to while she gets ready. He finds one and goes to throw on a clean pair of jeans and a button up shirt (a Strider looks his best for any occasion) and knocks on Jade's door to see if she's ready to go, hoping that this time she doesn't answer the door in her underwear.

It swings open and while she can't tell through his shades Dave immediately lifts his eyes to the ceiling and away from the naked girl—though no girl has those curves— in front of him.


	2. Chapter Two

“Oh, sorry Dave. I’m still trying to decide what to wear.” She turns away from him and walks to an open cardboard box on her bed, “Clothes :D” scrawled in green across the side in her curly handwriting. Dave, in deference to a friend, tries to keep his eyes off her rear as it naturally sways in front of him, and clamps down on the sarcastic comment that says she could wear nothing at all and he’d be fine with it.

“Typical woman; I’ll wait in the living room until you’re done then.” He pats himself on the back for getting in a jab while still getting out of this awkward situation that is awkward only to him. Because Jade, as she leans forward to pull out brightly colored shirts and skirts is obviously oblivious to anything wrong with her being completely naked and bending over her bed while Dave, a very much straight young male, stands behind her in her room.

He gets out while he can, and clamps on to thoughts of Jade being an old friend, John’s twin sister—the image of John with long hair and naked does the trick and Dave falls onto the couch completely turned off, ignoring the creak of springs and watching the local news while waiting for Jade to come out. It was bad enough when she walked into the kitchen the other morning in only a t-shirt that barely reached her thighs, or when he found out when he woke her up the first morning that she slept without a bra.

The couch groans as Dave shifts a little, thinking exasperatingly on Jade’s aversion to clothing. He can’t remember it ever being a problem during Sburb, but then again he saw Jade in person five times at the most, and back then when she fell asleep she had to be ready to jump up and shoot an imp within seconds of waking up. The fact that they were both thirteen at the time and all of Karkat’s pointed comments about shipping just made him laugh helped too. It still makes him chuckle that within a year of winning John asked Rose out, and then waited three years until she was ready to ask again. His best friend is still way too unironically sappy.

“Dave, I’m ready! Let’s go.” Jade rushes past him and has her hand on the door by the time Dave gets up and follows her, but grabs her arms before she starts heading down the stairs.

“Wait. Do you have everything?” She turns to him with that confused expression again.

“What do you mean? I’m wearing everything…right?” She looks down at the modest black skirt and green tank top she’s wearing, even wiggles her toes in her flip flops, and Dave rolls his eyes behind his shades.

“Where’s your purse Jade? Don’t chicks normally have a purse that’s packed for the fucking apocalypse?” She gives him a blank look and bites her lip, and Dave wonders if he should get Rose to spend a few days here before the semester starts and give Jade the rundown on being a broad.

“Do you at least have your cell phone, wallet, and keys hidden somewhere on you?” She shakes her head and Dave sighs.

“Why would I need them, we’re just going to the restaurant, right?”

“Jade, there are certain things you always leave home with. Remember when you always had a minimum of five computers or some shit on you?” She nods. “Your cell phone is a computer. Go get it off the counter.” She darts past him and Dave goes back inside, closing the door behind him. Looks like they’re going to play a game of treasure hunt before they go to the restaurant. When Jade comes back to the door, cellphone in her hand he points to her open bedroom door. “Go get your keychain with the apartment key I gave you when you got here, and your wallet wherever it is.” She frowns but turns around and goes into her room coming out in a few minutes wearing a light hoodie, the pockets bulging with all three items.

“I don’t have a purse.” She says before Dave has the chance to say anything, and he nods before opening the door, gesturing for her to go ahead of him.

She immediately starts heading down the stairs, but Dave pauses to lock the apartment door. After hearing the slide of the lock he takes his time coming down after her. “Why did you do that?” Jade asks, having paused on a landing when she noticed Dave wasn’t right behind her.

“People get jealous of others, and while I can’t blame people for being jealous of my sweet stuff, that doesn’t mean I’m going to leave my door wide open for them to just head right on in and get their grubby uncool hands on my shit.” She giggles at this more familiar way of explaining something, but he knows that with her being the only resident on her island she can’t fully understand, and flatly explains “You always lock your door, even when you’re home. We live in a city Jade, there’s crime almost everywhere and people are fucking stupid.” The suddenly uncertain nod she gives him confirms this and that she understands he’s serious about this now.

“That’s why I have my key on me at all times?”

“Yes.” She bites her lip, and Dave knows he’s once again ruined her good mood by tainting the optimistic view she has of the world. It’s something she and John both stubbornly held on to after the game, and he hates himself a little for having to finally rip it down now.

“C’mon. Let’s go get you some zucchini.” He twitches his lips into a hint of a smile, obvious enough for her to beam at him as they reach the ground floor and head to the parking lot where Dave keeps his car.


End file.
